Images are a powerful way to catch your audience’s eye and help illustrate your point better than you can with text alone. Social media graphics are an opportunity for small businesses and nonprofits to help tell a story, connect with their audience, and share important information.
There are so many options with how you can create and share images with your audience on social media. For example, you can use stock photos just to add some visual interests to your social media text posts, or you can create graphics that contain the text along with background color or background photos.
Whether you’re creating social media graphics with a tool like Canva, using professional graphic design software for images, or hiring a graphic designer to create your images, keep these things in mind to optimize your social media graphics.
Keep text short and simple
Less is more when it comes to text on social media graphics. Keep in mind the wide range of devices and wide range of ages who will be reading it. If you’re creating images on a laptop or desktop, be sure to preview them on a mobile phone to make sure you can still read the text.
Also keep in mind how quickly people scroll social media. It’s unlikely they’ll stop scrolling to read the fine print on an image, but larger text and fewer words might get them to stop the scroll and read your post. You can always include extra details in the text of the post rather than on the image itself if you need to share additional information.
Be aware of color contrast
If there’s not enough contrast between colors, your message may get lost, especially for anyone with a visual impairment. In general, lighter text on a dark background is the easiest to read, but many color combinations can work if there’s enough contrast. For a quick check of contrast, switch your image to grayscale and see if any portion of the image gets lost. If so, there’s not enough contrast.
Keep it legal
If you’re using stock photos for your social images, be sure you review the licensing terms. There are some free stock photo sites, but many of the free sources require that you credit the creator in a specific way when you use the photo. The best option is to find a paid stock photo resource where you are clearly licensing the photo for business use. You should never use a photo from a random Google search or from another person’s feed without permission for business marketing purposes.
Choose photos that match your brand
Where possible, you want to choose stock photos or background graphics that fit well with your brand. This can be a hard one for business owners doing their own social media and graphics, but it’s helpful to think about. Take some time to look at your website and your other marketing materials and really think about the feel and style of your brand, then choose photos for your social media graphics that fit.
Need help developing a social media strategy for your small business? Reach out to us today to talk about the marketing strategy process.